BEST Robotics teams from 22 schools to compete Saturday at Auburn University

AUBURN – Teams from 22 local middle and high schools participating in the 2008 Alabama BEST Robotics competition will put the robots they’ve been working on for the past six weeks to the test on Saturday, Oct. 25, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the Auburn University Student Activities Center, 671 Roosevelt Drive. The event is open to the public and free of charge.

Six weeks ago, the teams received their kits of standardized parts and were given the details of this year’s game, “Just Plane Crazy.” The challenge was to assemble aircraft in a simulated manufacturing plant using lean manufacturing and just-in-time inventory strategies. Since then, the student teams have designed and built robots for Saturday’s head-to-head competition. The competition will also test the team’s ability to market their creations using presentations, notebooks, displays, t-shirt designs and spirit.

The winning teams from this competition will advance to South’s BEST Robotics Championship, where they will compete against more than 50 winning teams from 11 other BEST competition hubs in eight states. The championship will be held Dec. 12-13 at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum on the Auburn campus.

Alabama BEST, Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology, is cosponsored by the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering and College of Sciences and Mathematics at Auburn University.